Dejected Lewis Hamilton Regrets Missing a Win After 2 Years as Mercedes Last Minute Change Strips Him of an Advantage

As the Singapore GP was coming to a close, Lewis Hamilton turned out to be one of the four drivers fighting for the win. However, that was not the case during qualifying as he only managed to push to P5 following a last-minute change in his car that resulted in a dip in performance. Following the race, Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 that he regrets missing out on the pole yesterday which might have allowed him to win for the first time in almost two years.

A Virtual Safety Car on lap 45 of the Singapore GP set up a grand finish to the race. Both of the Mercedes cars pitted and came out in P4 and P5 with brand-new tires. As they charged towards the front, Russell and Hamilton managed to clear Leclerc on laps 53 and 54 respectively.

Lewis Hamilton is now P3 in the Drivers Championship…

Making moves 📈 pic.twitter.com/s9LrmNzghR

— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) September 17, 2023

By lap 58, the Mercedes duo were on the tail of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz and the four drivers scrapped it out for the win. In the end, both Sainz and Norris managed to hang on as Russell made a fatal error and crashed in the last lap. This gave Hamilton a podium finish.

Lewis Hamilton reveals his biggest disappointment

Following the race, Hamilton spoke to Sky Sports F1 and reflected on what could have been. He revealed the one thing that he was disappointed about the most, and turns out that it was not related to the main race on Sunday at all.

Hamilton said to Sky Sports, “It’s all in hindsight but I think, the thing I’m most disappointed with (…) George was so close to pole yesterday. I should’ve been on pole yesterday.” 

#SingaporeGP 🇸🇬: Lewis Hamilton post-race: “It’s all in hindsight but I think, the thing I’m most disappointed with (…) George was so close to pole yesterday, I should’ve been on pole yesterday.” pic.twitter.com/9yCRDXdHPD

— deni (@fiagirly) September 17, 2023

The Briton revealed on Saturday that the main reason why he could not be as close to the front as Russell was that the team decided to change a few things on his car in an attempt to be faster than the Ferraris. However, it didn’t really turn out that way and instead the changes made his slower.

The Singapore disaster for George Russell

Nevertheless, at the end of the day, it was Hamilton who turned out to be the saving grace for Mercedes, scoring a podium finish. The Silver Arrows missed out on a huge scoring haul after Russell tried to push too hard to overtake Lando Norris and crashed in the last lap of the race.

Russell had had a brilliant race up until that moment. The Briton had been running in P2 for the majority of the race. However, he chose to give up track position to get onto a faster tyre and fell back to P4.

The Mercedes driver managed to get back up to P3 and had closed up on the leading pair before his right rear clipped the wall on the last lap and he crashed out. This promoted Hamilton to P3 on track as well as in the driver’s championship.